Diabetes

Here's a note from Bev:

Not many of you may know that October is Diabetes awareness month.
My youngest son Daniel was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 11 years old. He is now 24 years old and is the father of two beautiful little girls. Everyday is a juggling act for him to make sure he takes good care of himself and keeps his glucose regulated by diet and insulin. Some days he may have to test his glucose up to 6 times and may have to take as many as 5 shots in a day.
There are 3 million people who have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Most are children under the age of 20.
I want there to be a cure in his life time so he will be able to see his girls grow to be beautiful intelligent women and have children of their own. Diabetes is an auto immune disease that attacks the pancreas, the organ that produces insulin. There are several factors that causes a persons to have type 1 diabetes. Heredity is one. I want more than anything to see diabetes be a illness of the past. It can only happen by research.
I therefore set forth a challenge for the Walkure and her crew (Mike and I) to see if our travels in the month of October can help to raise donations for research.

Go to this link:

Fowers Team

You can make a pledge for the miles we travel in October, or a specific total. All donations should go directly to the JDRF.

SPOT will help you keep track of this for you and you will also be able to see where we are by google earth. Make sure you sign up for our Yahoo email group to get the daily updates. You do not need to have Yahoo email to join the group, any email address will work.
Thanks so much for your help in assuring other parents that their kids will have a fighting chance!

Splash!

Well, folks, we're a boat again! Walkure is in the water and floating nicely on her lines. The launch was yesterday, and now we will take a few days to get everything sorted out, bend on the sails, stow our gear, provisions, etc, and we will be ready to go cruising again.
Last weekend the Maritime Foundation of Mathews held a Maritime Heritage day right here at the marina. There were exhibits of locally built boats, some great models of Chesapeake work boats, food and music.
Also, our friends Laurie and Paul from Verkennen stopped by to visit. They attended the fair with us and shared we had dinner together a couple of times. Laurie taught Bev how to catch crabs and we all had some great crab cakes from their catch.

Almost done

We're getting very close to launch time. The boat is almost ready. We're hoping to "splash" the boat Friday, or perhaps Monday. Either way, it won't be long.
On the trip up here we were disappointed in the power of the Tohatsu engine. It ran fine but it just didn't have the thrust of the Yamaha. So we bit the bullet, went into debt (darn it, I just got that credit card paid off) and bought a new Suzuki High Thrust model with power tilt. (Yamaha won't sell me an engine unles they install it and they won't come here to the marina.) SO...if you know anyone in the Virginia area who wants a good engine, the Tohatsu is for sale. (It's a good engine, just not the right one for this boat.)
This Saturday, Mathews County will be holding their annual "Heritage Day" fair right here at the marina. Y'all come!
Here are a few pictures of the repairs. One is of the newly repaired and painted bilgeboard, one is the finished skeg, and one is of me mounting the new motor bracket I designed to hold the power tilt engine. The bilgeboard is now back in place and functioning. As soon as the new motor is mounted and painted, we'll be ready to launch!

Bolger Memorial

This past weekend in Gloucester, MA, a bunch of Bolger fans held a tribute to Phil, who passed away suddenly last May.
We were very sorry that we could not attend because Walkure is on the hard here in VA, but we were there in spirit.

Click on this link to see the first photos of the event:

Bolger Memorial Photos

Repairs progress

We're still here in VA working hard on the repairs, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The old lower molding, which had rotted, has been replaced with trex, a synthetic decking lumber. Once we polish the old bronze rub rail and put it back on you'll never know the difference - except it won't rot again.
We've added a mini bow sprit to hold an anchor roller.
The new skeg is mounted on the bottom and is just waiting for clear weather so we can prime and paint it.
The starboard side bilgeboard has been completely rebuilt and is just waiting for prime and paint.
The old motor bracket had developed a crack, so we are replacing that too.
It's coming along. It won't be long now.

Repairs

The starboard side bilge board is almost rebuilt, just needs a little more epoxy and then paint.
Also, here's a shot of the new skeg (upside down.) I will post another pic as soon as it is mounted on the bottom.
We were hoping to be under way by the 14th, but it looks like it will be another week after that until we can splash the boat. Lot's of work yet to do.